A quote by Nobel laurate Hermann Muller made just after
World War II is used a evidence that mutations are
universally detrimental. This document shows problems
with the quote, what Muller really thought about the
matter, and how biological thought has changed since
Muller's time.

For a number of reasons, the posting of this list was
illustrative of a persistent and basically dishonest
practice, frequently engaged in by creationists, that has
become known as "quote-mining." While the etymology of this
term is obscure, the definition is clear enough. It is the
use of a (usually short) passage, taken from the work of an
authority in some field, "which
superficially appears to support one's position, but [from
which] significant context is omitted and contrary evidence
is conveniently ignored" [3].

In response, numerous people took the trouble to look up
the source material to learn the context of the passages.
The result of this considerable effort demonstrated that
these "quotes" were, in very large part, so out-of-context
as to qualify as complete distortions of the authors'
intent. As noted by Dana Tweedy, one of the responders:

Those quotations were carefully taken out of context, to
change the meaning. The "evolutionist(s)" in those
quotations [were] not admitting that "a portion of
evolution" was "fraudulent". That is the whole point of a
"lie of omission", to omit the part of the person's words
that explains and clarifies the person's position. Those
quotes you stole are classic lies of omission. They are
false, and using them is perpetrating a falsehood . . . [4]

Another responder, John Wilkins, continued in the same
vein:

[I]t is worth observing too that not only were these
quotes taken carefully out of context, but that they
must have been deliberately done so. After
[unearthing the context] I could not find there is [any]
way these could have been taken accidentally or in
ignorance out of the context.

Several of them turn out to be railing against
creationists. More than a few turn out to be making the
exact opposite point [than the bare words seem to indicate]
and at least one was reporting secondarily on the ideas of
others in order to rebut them. Once is a mistake, twice is
carelessness, three times could be stupidity, but the sheer
volume of these is a deliberately planned campaign of
disinformation. [5]

Another aspect of this practice is that these "quotes"
are widely passed around and used repeatedly by
creationists, while neither bothering to check the original
source nor giving any indication that they are
taken from secondary sources. This is shown by the fact (as
can be seen in a number of these cases) that there are
errors that can and have crept into these quotes
or their citations which are then propagated by other
creationists when they are copied without attribution.
(Ironically, this is the same type of "copying error", i.e.
mutation, that can be used to trace phylogenetic histories
of populations.) More importantly, such thoughtless iterations
demonstrate an unwillingness
to understand the underlying issues and an indifference to the ideas
and
reputations of the people whose names they are appropriating.

In addition, some of the "quotes" were outright
fabrications; others were actually taken from creationist
authors or other people who doubted, rather than supported,
evolution (making their designation as "evolutionists"
itself disingenuous); several were expressions of opinion
by people with no expertise in fields related to evolution
and many were so old as to be of no use at all in
understanding present day evolutionary theory. The few
quotes that can be said to be both in context and from
knowledgeable proponents of evolution [6] invariably discuss limited technical
subjects which may appear, to those unfamiliar with the
details of
modern biology,
to contradict evolutionary
theory but, in fact, do not.

Of course, even if each and every one of these quotes
was accurate and truly reflected the opinions of the
authors, it would not matter a bit. If all eighty-six were
from different scientists [7] and all
eighty-six thought evolution wrong, that would not begin to
tip the consensus formed by hundreds of thousands, perhaps
millions, of scientists from a broad range of fields that
firmly hold evolution to be the only current
scientific theory that explains all the myriad facts
surrounding the nature of life on Earth.

Naturally enough, the question arises: 'If the quotes
don't mean anything, why should we care enough to go to
such great lengths to show these quotes for what they are?'
The best answer came from John Wilkins:

The first issue is whether or not they have been
correctly quoted. You know as well as I do that the only
reason these quotes have been put up on the web and dittoed
by the dittoheads like [the poster] is that they imply that
these people do not think that evolution is true for some
reason, and that the clever folk at AiG [8] or wherever have "caught them in a slipup"
that reveals their "true" beliefs. It is all a rhetorical
trick.

They have not been correctly quoted (except, perhaps,
for the creationists in that list who are been falsely
touted as evolutionists). This is the first dishonesty.
Because every single one of the quotes so far
checked do intend to say that evolution is correct,
and that what we see is consistent with it. All of
them. You can dance around this issue all you like, but it
is still a lie, and an egregious one. Doing this in a first
year undergraduate essay would earn an instant failure. It
is the very worst of scholarship.

The second issue is whether or not they are correct in
their statements. Most of them are comments made about the
punctuated equilibrium
theory/model/pattern that was, at
the time of most of these publications, a hot issue in
evolutionary biology. There was considerable debate on the
matter. The consensus that resulted, and which is in place
today, is that evolution will show these sorts of
patterns, both for the reasons Gould and Eldredge supposed
(allopatric speciation) and for other reasons (nonlinear
dynamics in populations). Hence, it is dishonest to imply,
the way the quote miner does, that this is an unresolved
issue in modern evolutionary biology.

The third act of dishonesty is that the quote miner is
"cherry picking". This is the term for when you go looking
through the literature to find cites that back up your own
personal hobbyhorse. Of course in this case the hobbyhorse
is that "evolutionists are themselves questioning
Darwinism", but still it is a bad thing to do, morally and
academically. [9]

In short, these quote-mined lists come with their own
context which makes them important to address. The site
this list was "appropriated" from, for example, prefaces it
with the following:

Before any serious dialogue of deity can be entertained,
the subjects of spontaneous generation and evolution must
first be addressed.

This is one of the more inflammatory topics of
discussion, especially coming from a creation point of
view. In order to gain as much credibility as possible and
so you can understand why I feel the way I do, I will use
words spoken by evolutionists. [10]

Clearly this list is intended to provide support both
for a particular religious view and for a denial of the
scientific nature of evolutionary theory. The first is an
egregious abuse of the views of most of the people quoted
and the second is a blatant distortion (whether through
ignorance or dishonesty) of the words themselves. In any
event, to remain silent in the face of this tactic would be
to be to fail the avowed purpose of Talk.Origins and,
worse, to be complicit in the lie.

It is important, though, to note that this is not
intended as an indictment of religion in general or of
those who believe that life is the result of divine action.
There is little doubt that the majority of the contributors
to this effort (many of whom are, themselves, theists)
would agree that this dishonesty is not the typical
behavior of believers in a moral and loving God. It is the
aberration of a tiny minority who, through tactics such as
these, have gained importance all out of proportion to the
value of their ideas.

Finally, we hope to be adding to this list as time goes
by. If you find an example of creationist quote mining and
have the correct context, please feel free to forward it to
John Pieret.

Note: The following is a list of the names of all the
people who did the work of tracking down the original
context of these quotes: Jon (gen2rev) Barber, Mike
Dunford, Lenny Flank, "Floyd," Stanley Friesen, "Dr.GH,"
Tracy P. Hamilton, "Hier05ant," Mike Hopkins, Sverker
Johansson, Laurence A. Moran, J. (catshark) Pieret, "Tom,"
Tom (TomS) Scharle, Deanne (Lilith) Taylor, C. Thompson,
Dana Tweedy, Mark VandeWettering, "Professor Weird,"
David Wilson, and
John Wilkins.

By far, the most dogged contributor was Jon (gen2rev)
Barber who replied to 29 quotes, many of them hard to find.
We particularly want to thank him.

Only 6
(quote #9,
quote #27,
quote #46,
quote #54,
quote #61 and
quote #73) can be said
(using very generous
standards) to be in context and not otherwise bogus for the
reasons enumerated above. That means that the creationists
responsible for this list are batting a pathetic .070
(7%).

Stephen Jay Gould and Niles
Eldredge, as the originators of "Punctuated Equilibria" (as
discussed at length in the various responses) are the
subject of many of the quote-mines in this particular list
and are frequent targets of this practice by creationists,
since, to those only vaguely familiar with evolutionary
theory, their pronouncements may appear to be
anti-evolutionary. Darwin, himself, is also a common
target, because of his usual rhetorical approach of asking
a seemingly damning question and then answering it, which,
when the answer is omitted, may sound like a concession on
his part.